# Stuff You've Completely Misinterpreted **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 18, 2005, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-youve-completely-misinterpreted/312934 "2005-07-18T02:32:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-youve-completely-misinterpreted/312934/21 "2005-07-18T20:59:14Z")
Camus din’t really call himself anything–except a journalist or a writer. He tended to eschew labeling himself or others. He said he couldn’t be a philosopher because he had no faith in reason. Anyway, Camus’s important work is seperated into phases (he planned it this way). The Stranger (better translated as The Outsider or The Alien), the Myth of Sissyphus and Caligula all belong to the first stage. The Plague and the Rebel are from the second phase, further developments of his thinking. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-youve-completely-misinterpreted/312934/22 "2005-07-18T21:15:59Z")
The Stranger is more interesting a story than it is as a philosophical treatise. I like the bit about the old man and his dog. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-youve-completely-misinterpreted/312934/23 "2005-07-18T21:23:00Z")
I thought Woody Allen’s [_Interiors_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077742/) was a comedy. I was the only one laughing in the theater. I thought it was a satire of Bergman. Sadly, I was wrong. ---
**Author:** ![vibrotronica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a9a28c/32.png) [@vibrotronica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vibrotronica)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-youve-completely-misinterpreted/312934/24 "2005-07-18T22:08:10Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > I think I might have been party to a massive misinterpretation of Monty Python’s “Life of Brian.” Mrs. Evil Captor and I saw it in a suburban theater here in the Deep South. Frequently, we were the only ones laughing. So frequently that we were wondering as we left the theater if our fellow patrons realized they’d been watching a comedy. I had a similar experience with _Natural Born Killers_ in Seattle, of all places. In retrospect, it is not clear who was misinterpreting what in that situation. Similarly, when I saw _Adaptation_ for the first time, I was laughing at the end when Donald dies in Charlie’s arms in a horribly overwrought, cliched fashion and I noticed the woman sitting two seats over was crying. In this case, however, she was the one with the interpretation problem. ---
**Author:** ![harmless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/2acd7d/32.png) [@harmless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmless)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-youve-completely-misinterpreted/312934/25 "2005-07-18T22:22:41Z")
This thread title. I clicked New Posts, was browsing down the list and saw: \*\*Stuffy, You’ve Completely Misinterpreted \*\* Came _thisclose_ to thinking it was a complaint/pitting of **Stuffy** before realizing it was in Cafe Society, which made me re-read the title. :smack: Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2005, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-youve-completely-misinterpreted/312934/26 "2005-07-18T23:03:35Z")
Well, _who_ has mis-interpeted _what_ is often open to question, and might decide on where you are standing. In school I was taught that Orwell’s _Animal Farm_ was a sly, clever satire on the evils of communism. For years and years I never heard any different view. Then I learned that in cold war Russia they were also very fond of _Animal Farm_ as an educational text for young minds. Because it was such a sly, clever satire on the evils of _capitalism_. And it really can be read either way. Of course, it can be hard to see this if you have been taught one interpretation all your life and given to understand that it is the one, true and only interpretation. But once you get past this mental block, the book can be made out to be pretty much whatever you want. (I do have a degree in Eng. Lit. if that makes any difference.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stuff-youve-completely-misinterpreted/312934.md?page=1)